


Obituary

by Shortandblonde



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Memories, Mourning, Post-Series, reqiuem, uhh theres not much here that applies lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-04-17 18:47:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14195379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shortandblonde/pseuds/Shortandblonde
Summary: An Obituary for Commander Jane Elia Shepard, written by Diana Allers for the Battlestar News Network.There are many of us out there, in this thriving galaxy, that can say we would never be the people we are were it not for her.





	Obituary

**Author's Note:**

> Something I wrote a while back and decided to do some brief editing on. Enjoy.

Commander Jane Shepard was one of the greatest people I have ever had the privilege to know. She was strong, brave, and confident, and anyone could’ve seen it. Even someone who knew nothing of military life- who had never heard the name Shepard uttered under the breath of a refugee, who had never heard the stories of her heroics- could look at the way she stood with her back so straight and know that Commander Shepard was a tough and war-hardened woman marked by years of fighting battles bigger than herself. Every scar that marked her skin told a story, though even she did not know them all. When Shepard walked into a room, you stood to attention whether you realized it or not. She was fearless and harsh and her heart was as cold as it needed to be when fighting enemies who could very well rip away all of our existence without a hint of hesitance. Sometimes, though, if you dared look long enough, you would have found something human beneath the soldier. There were moments when she’d linger in front of the memorials in the refugee camps and you’d know she was trying to recall long passed memories. Her eyes would catch on a particular picture, or she’d squeeze the shoulder of a stranger and offer an apology. You would know, by the note caught in her voice, that she felt guilty that she hadn’t saved the mourned. Other times you would catch a soft, fond smile when she would stand on the docks of the Citadel, looking out at her ship. She’d tell anyone who asked that the _Normandy_ was her home.

I traveled with the Commander since the day that Earth fell. I witnessed, first hand, many of the cruelties of the war. But Shepard saw them in even deeper detail. I sat down with her one night, as a friend, and we talked of smaller things. Our homes, our family, the best place on the Citadel to get a drink. I learned that Jane Elia Shepard was born on the Presidium. Most of her childhood had been spent living between various space stations and colonies depending on where her parents- both Alliance navy- were sent. She enlisted at 18. Almost twenty years ago to the day I’m writing this was the infamous incident on Akuze, where nearly an entire squadron lost their lives, but Shepard became known for the fact that she lived. From there she was offered a place in the N7 program, and later became a spectre. The rest is the history we all know.

I learned that night that Shepard’s favorite chapstick was cherry-flavored, and that a particularly nasty scar on her right arm hadn’t come from a battle, but from a fall she’d taken as a child. I learned that she loved old school rock and we listened for a long time to Earth music from over a century ago while we talked about the ways we spent our summers as teenagers and our awkward first dates. She told me of how, when she was 16 and visiting a beach on Earth, a string of lifeguards tricked her into walking half a mile to ask each lifeguard posted for a “wave measuring tool” that didn’t exist. She told me that she and Kaiden Alenko had almost gotten into a fight once, when she first enlisted, but that neither of them would realize this until years later.

She confided in me the grief that she’d went through following Alenko’s death, and about how strange it was to wake up alive after two years spent dead. She told me about the nightmares she’d had since Earth fell- the shadows that called her name and begged fr her help, of how the voices were ones that she knew too well. But most of all, I learned that night that Shepard was nothing more than human.

I don’t know how Jane fought as she did. She’d suffered more than I could have ever imagined, but she always pushed forwards. I witnessed such a small portion of her life, yet I know with all my heart that I never have met and never will meet again anymore who has such determination to do what has to be done. She didn’t have to be our savior, but she was. She didn’t have to face the reapers, or stand face-to-face with death so often, or make herself a champion of an entire galaxy, but she did. She had a drive that for all of her life made her do amazing things, simply because they had to be done.

Jane Shepard told me the story of how she found her home and family aboard the Normandy, that night. It was hilarious and heartbreaking, and words cannot express the warmth that flowed through me when she told me that I had become a part of that. I won’t lie and say the two of us didn’t shed tears.

Commander Jane Elia Shepard was a savior and an inspiration to us all. She gave us our future, bought and paid for it with everything she had. She made sacrifice after sacrifice and never stopped fighting. She was family to many, and a hero to so many more. There are many of us out there, in this thriving galaxy, that can say we would never be the people we are were it not for her.

Thank you, Shepard. For Everything.

_\- An Obituary for Commander Jane Elia Shepard, written by Diana Allers for the Battlestar News Network_


End file.
